Hundreds of stuffed bunnies brighten the day for babies born premature

Saturday

Mar 22, 2008 at 12:01 AMMar 22, 2008 at 9:00 PM

Casey's General Store manager just wanted to give back

Brian Feldt

Adam Keller must be popular.

Having spent all 11 of his days inside the confines of an incubator on the fourth floor of OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, Adam already had 300 cuddly friends outside his hospital room waiting to be his buddy.

The friend selected for Adam, a foot-long stuffed bunny rabbit, was blue and fuzzy and larger than he was.

Adam was born 13 weeks premature and was just one of a few hundred premature babies that will receive a donated stuffed bunny from Casey’s General Store in Creve Coeur.

For Adam, it was the first friend allowed inside his incubator and the bunny towered over him by nearly half a foot.

Casey’s donated about 300 stuffed bunnies and bears just in time for the Easter holiday. For many premature babies, the bunnies will be their first friends besides their parents and a handful of doctors and nurses.

"It’s unbelievable really," said Randy Keller, the proud first-time father. "This is really nice. We weren’t thinking a whole lot about Easter (with Adam), but this is a really generous thing to do."

Billie Wilson, manager of the Creve Coeur Casey’s, said her store hatched the idea about a month ago and started a collection of money and bunnies around Valentine’s Day, with a goal of 300 bunnies. No more than a month later, the goal was reached thanks to the support of the community.

"It is so much fun to see the customers come in and they get really into it," she said. "They thought it was cute and they went out of their way to help us out."

Wilson said her store did a similar donation for Christmas, when it participated in the Adopt-a-Family program, and plans on doing another drive again for Memorial Day.

Pat Hegwood, patient care manager for St. Francis’ neonatal unit, said central Illinois is a very generous community and it just took the help of Wilson and her store to direct the charity.

Hegwood said she believes any type of love a premature child can get can go a long way.

"Any extra love always helps," she said. "The baby can see a smile on mom or dad’s face and when they see the parents doing well and doing good, that transmits to the baby. Every little bit helps."

Wilson, though, is just returning the favor to a neonatal unit that helped her daughter nearly 20 years ago.

Wilson said her daughter was born two months premature and had to be transported to St. Francis for observation. While at St. Francis, Wilson said her daughter was given a stuffed reindeer, which she believed helped her progression.

The St. Francis neonatal unit serves more than 800 kids each year. About half of that number consists of premature babies while the other half face some type of health risk, Hegwood said.